Monday, October 07, 2013

You Never Can Tell

It's not enough to have finished a couple skeins of yarn during the Tour de Fleece. Now that the yarn's finished, I want to play with it.

When I say "play," I mean play. I don't mean hunt around on Ravelry for a suitable pattern and knit that pattern. I mean wind up the skein...

...and get excited all over again about the gradual color changes. Then pick needles that look like they might work well enough, cast on some stitches, and see what the hell happens.

I can hear teeth grinding out there. I understand. Setting sail without a destination isn't everybody's idea of a swell time. Some folks prefer to pick a destination, then get to it via the most direct route. That's fine. Knitting's a big tent. There's room for everybody.

Me, I like to play.

I have a vague notion for this yarn: a hat. Worked top down without much detail, since the yarn is the point. I want to watch those colors change. I want to see what my amateur's thick-thin-thinner-THICK-thin-thicker-thick-THIN-thick two-ply looks like in plain stockinette.

Judy's Magic Cast On makes top-down circular hats a treat, so that's how I began. I chose US size two needles, and produced a scrap of fabric so incredibly dense it could have run for Congress on the Tea Party ticket.

I ripped back and tried again with a pair of size four circulars. Much better fabric–firm, but supple. Since I'd begun at the crown, I knew I needed to increase a great deal and quickly to get the proper shape. I probably ought to have sat down and reviewed the formula for these increases–how much and how often–but I didn't. I was playing.

I was also talking to people.

In a dark sports bar.

With loud music.

At night.

During a bingo game.

You sense where this is going, perhaps.

At the very beginning of a top-down crown it's good to throw in fifty-percent increases every other round. You knit a round, you double the number of stitches, you knit a round, you double the number of stitches.

Then, if you intend to do things in a sensible fashion, you tap the brake and slow down either the frequency or the rate of your increases. I know this. I have known this for years.

But I was not feeling sensible. I was feeling annoyed, since two of my tablemates had achieved a bingo and I had not. I don't even like bingo, and there's nothing that frosts my cookies like losing at a game I didn't want to play in the first place.

I kept knitting, and increasing, and knitting, and increasing, and didn't notice until the next day that my stitch count per round had grown from

eight

to something in the area of

three hundred.

That is rather more stitches around than you probably want in a hat for a human being.

Not to mention that the work was extremely bunchy on the needles. It looked like a bruised cauliflower.

So I slipped it off to see what I'd got. Here it is.

Not what I have in mind for this hat. Disturbingly reminiscent of the ruffled table mats my grandmother's friends used to churn out. But the color changes–those are pretty. And the ruffling–I don't want to use it now, but I'd be surprised if I won't find a reason to use it some time.

Still don't have a hat, but I'm having fun. And I learned something. Which for me is often the same thing.

I could imagine working from that, slowing down the rate of increase, but still going outward for a bit, then work even for a bunch of inches, then, decrease enough to make a snug ribbed brim. But it probably wouldn't be your style. Someone's style. But probably not yours.

Isn't it a sheer delight to knit with your own handspun! And you gain incredible amounts of insight on your spinning when you knit with yarn you made. Ok, maybe not so much in a dark sports bar, but still a lot.

And those colors are fabulous; great job on maintaining the color changes, by the way!

Playing with yarn is reason enough in-and-of itself. If you want to just hold it in your hands and coo at it, that's good, too. Ruffles are fun. Learning is fun. This is a win, win, win situation as far as I can tell. And the yarn is delicious! Play on!!

I have no idea what you could use it for, but it's gorgeous. Simply stunning. Sort-of like a cross between a cabbage and a jellyfish, and I know that sounds like something that has no right being beautiful, but... It is. It's beautiful.

Beautiful colors, though. It looks like the sea urchins/coral/whatevers a bunch of us in Chicago crocheted/knitted for the Great Coral Reel Extravaganza a few years back. We all met at Jane Addams Hull House, got our instructions and went to town. I think a book may have been written about it.

What you just created reminds me of a talk on TED. http://blog.ted.com/2009/04/20/crocheting_in_h/ What she did was in crochet, but it looks mighty like what you just did in knitting. You are a mathematician and didn't know it!

When my youngest daughter was learning to knit she made something that looked like this....she told us (with a very serious look on her face) that this was EXACTLY what she intended to make. She even had a name for it (which escapes me now...so much for mother's remembering every charming word that comes out of their offspring's adorable mouthes). Of course she was only ten at the time.

When I show her your picture she will be mad that you copied her masterpiece.

You are well on your way to a hyperbolic plane... if you continue to double the number of stitches at a fairly regular rate, it will be awfully cool when its done. More sculpture than hat, but then it's okay to leave it on the sofa for people to admire.

I'm loving (coveting perhaps) your yarn. It is gorgeous and will be beautiful in whatever you create. Just think of this piece as getting to spend more time with your yarn before it finally tells you what it wants to have happen ;)

Your yarn is beautiful! Love the color changes. And, thanks to your wicked humor, I had to wipe up the pop that I spit out when I read the line about the Tea Party. That's the first laugh I've had about those idiots, so thanks for that!

Your ruffly thing is very pretty. It looks like ornamental cabbage. I lived for a few years in Saskatchewan, and the older ladies there were fond of crocheting those ruffled table mats. They actually starched them by dipping them in sugar water to make them stiff. And then they displayed them proudly on the dining room table with nicknacks on them.

I made something similar, ages ago, when trying to make a felted hat. It looked exactly like that, and I thought, in my naivete, that it would felt down. It did. The cats adore sleeping in their lovely felted lily pad.

I shared your spectacular last line on FB: "I'm having fun. And I learned something. Which for me is often the same thing." That. Is. Absolutely. Me. Too.

My brilliantly funny PhD friend who loves words (you two have much in common, including a wicked sense of humor and no need for shampoo) posted this reply - a huge compliment to you, I hope you receive it as such:

"In a hole in the ground there lived a Habit. Not a nasty, damp, smelly Habit, but a Franklin Habit, and that means quotability."

LOL, I've seen that ruffly type of knitted item! When I asked the LYS teacher why knitting was so hard, she asked to see my pattern, then asked me to count the stitches I had. Ratio of stitches on needles to stitches pattern required: 250 to 1, or thereabouts. Pesky yos!

I do actually like the kale look! How about a whole knitted garden of yarn vegetables? Then you can say, "I meant to do that." Well, if you do that, you might want to delete your post since it is evidence to the contrary. :-)

Some of us would say "dense enough to pass a massive piece of legislation without a fucking clue as to what it said." Your conservative bashing just earned you a lost reader who is disappointed that you could not resist the urge to put politics in knitting.

It also means the bookstore will be getting three copies of your book, purchased as Christmas presents, back to stock. Congrats for kicking yourself in the arse.

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